Excellence Quote by Michael Portillo

“With hindsight, going to Nottingham High School transformed my whole life. I think that six boys and six girls from Highbury Primary School had…

— Ken Clarke

The Margaret Thatchers of this country made it through - like I did - because of the grammar school system, which gave the opportunity…

— Andrew Neil

I was raised in public schools, but from the word go, I never believed what the public schools were teaching me. Nor did I…

— Peter Brook

At age 11 in 1960, I moved to an academic state secondary school, Harrow County Grammar School for Boys.

— Paul Nurse

In my day, they were not interested in making boys happy. Those schools were made for the types of men who would become quite…

— Louis Auchincloss

I'd like thousands of schools as good as the one I went to, Eton.

— Boris Johnson

Education in British schools isn't good enough. It's not remotely imaginative enough. It lets down too many children, excluding them from society, and, as…

— Richard Rogers

We have a large underclass in Britain, and a fairly low standard of education. Our best universities are extremely good, but a very significant…

— Nigel Short

Not that I had any special reason for hating school. Strange as it may seem to my readers, I was not unpopular there. I…

— Max Beerbohm

I went to a grim Victorian school with classes of 40 or 50 children. It was a very rigid and unimaginative education, but it…

— Tom Paulin

By being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. . . . I got…

— Winston Churchill

Conservatives have always embraced the idea of grammar schools - that giving a top tier education to bright children from working class backgrounds provides…

— Dawn Foster